Note: may contain spoilers for second season of Battlestar Galactica

Thirteen

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Reflections of the Past

It was an irony that Garrison Hollifield was president of the Earth Alliance. In many ways, he felt more comfortable on Babylon 5 or on Minbar than on the very homeworld in which he served as president. Granted, he loved Earth with all of his heart, but the place seemed to also haunt him at the same time.

The thirty-second anniversary of the Battle of the Line was coming up soon, and the day always haunted him, having been one of only two hundred survivors of a battle in which twenty-five thousand humans went into said confrontation. It was the final battle of the Earth-Minbari War, and many humans were still puzzled why the Minbari surrendered on the eve of victory.

He knew, of course, because he was there. He had led Beta Squadron, while his friend, Jeffery Sinclair, led Alpha Squadron. No one expected to come back from the battle alive. Their job was to hold off the Minbari long enough so that a few transports containing humans could get away from Earth before the Minbari turned their weapons onto his homeworld.

It had been an uneasy night of sleep the night before. He knew what was coming, and his nightmares weren't about the battle, but the aftermath of it. Hollifield could see cities reduced to heaping slags of black glass under the beam weapons on the Minbari cruisers. To the Minbari, this was a holy war, and the humans must be wiped out for killing the Chosen One, Dukhat, during their first contact.

His first wife had committed suicide months earlier. Victoria and he had been separated, and her emotional problems had finally gotten the best of her. She had left a suicide note in her apartment in New Orleans and hung herself off the balcony. Despite the fact that the crowd below had managed to get her down relatively quickly, the bed sheet she had used as a noose had broken her neck and killed her immediately.

Since then, he had pretty much fought the war expecting to die at any moment. He didn't care anymore, except for the people around him. His best friend was his wingman, Pamela Desmon. She hailed from Sydney, Australia, and she'd been with him the night of his wife's suicide. They had bonded since then, but were still just friends. He knew that Pamela was attracted to him, but he couldn't bear to get involved with her with the war going on and the death of his wife still fresh in his mind.

They were in the locker room, packing up gear to get ready to launch into space the next morning when the president came over the loud speaker. From the way she sounded, she already knew the way the battle was going to go. Before being assigned command of this squadron, he had served as captain of the presidential guard for Elizabeth Levy. Levy was an old friend of his father and his uncle Walter, and had granted him this assignment on their behalf. Hollifield hadn't liked it, but he had figured that it was his duty to carry out his assignment. Then the war came, and he felt guilty that so many of his friends were dying and he was in the one safe place on Earth.

"This is ... This is the president. I have just been informed that our midrange military bases at Beta Deroni and Proxima Three have fallen to the Minbari advance. We have lost contact with Io and must conclude that they to have fallen to an advanced force. Our military intelligence believes that Minbari intend to by pass Mars and hit Earth directly and the attack may come at any time. We have continued to broadcast our surrender and a plea for mercy and they have not responded. We therefore can only conclude that we stand at the twilight of the Human race. In order to buy more time for our evacuation transports to leave Earth, we ask for support of every ship capable of fighting, to take part in a defense of our homeworld. We will not lie to you. We do not believe survival is a possibility. We believe that anyone who joins this battle, will never come home again. But for every ten minutes, we can delay the military advance, several hundred more civilians may have a chance to escape to neutral territory. Though Earth may fall, the Human race must have a chance to continue elsewhere. No greater sacrifice has ever been asked of a people, but I ask you now, to step forward one last time. One last battle to hold the line against the night! May God go with you all."

His squadron's heart broke at that moment, as did his. They began to go their separate ways, leaving Pamela and Garrison in the locker room by themselves. They stared off into space for seemingly forever before they noticed that they weren't alone.

"It's over, isn't it? We go up there tomorrow, we don't come back." Pamela said soberly.

Garrison nodded and added, "Well, maybe there's still a chance for a miracle. I'm not counting on it, but you've got to have some hope if you're going to get into a Starfury and ride fire against the bone heads tomorrow."

"Any plans for your last night on Earth?" she asked.

"Now that you mention it, no. I was just going to go back to my billet and try to sleep before tomorrow morning. Why?"

"Your billet mate isn't in, is he?"

"Hobson? No, he's already on the Endeavor. He shipped up a few days ago, so I've had a room to myself these last few days."

Pamela walked over to him and sat beside him, then spoke up again. "I want you to take me back to your room and make love to me, Garrison."

This surprised Garrison, and Pamela continued, "I've fallen for you. I can't help it. Even before Vicki died, I've had a thing for you. I've not wanted to act upon it until you were ready to, but, since this is the last night we'll probably be alive, well…"

Garrison saw her eyes wet with tears, and he stood up, taking her by the hand and helping her to her feet. They stood there for a moment staring at each other, slowly closing in on one another. She then grabbed his head and kissed his mouth furiously, as if her very life depended on it. They began to passionately make out right there, and broke only long enough to run down to his billet.

From the moans and groans going on around his room, this idea wasn't exactly a unique one. He didn't care as he shucked off his uniform and tossed it on Dean Hobson's bed. Pamela was out of hers just as quickly, and they stood before each other naked to the world. Garrison took her over to the bed, gently laid her down onto it, and climbed onto her to begin making love to her.

They hadn't gotten any sleep that night at all, because when they finished, the sun was just beginning to climb over the horizon. "You know, we forgot all about protection." Garrison remarked.

She snorted, saying, "Who cares if I'm pregnant? I'm still going up this morning anyway, and neither of us will live long enough to see it to term anyhow."

"Yeah, you're right. Guess we should start getting ready." Garrison began to get up, but Pamela stopped him.

"If, by some chance, we both make it back, can I ask you to do something for me?"

"What's that?"

Pamela grew serious as she said, "If we somehow both make it back, I want to marry you. Hell, it may be a mistake, but I'm willing to take that chance if you are."

Garrison smiled, climbed back on top of her, and kissed her again. Things would have started up again had it not been for an announcement over the intercom that they had to be at the shuttle in thirty minutes.

Hours later, he was sitting in his Star Fury, expecting to die very soon. He was surprisingly calm, he found, as he checked his instruments. His squadron was in radio silence as the Minbari jumped into normal space. He got a fix on a Minbari fighter and went after it, knowing that time was running out. He nailed it in the aft engines and blew it up with his pulse cannons, then swung his fighter around to get another one.

He didn't know what had happened to his squadron. In the end, all but his and Pamela's fighter had been taken out right at the beginning. Pamela's was heavily damaged, but she had somehow survived the impact, being knocked cold by the beam from the impact of another fighter that had knocked out her engines and her weapons systems. To the Minbari, her fighter looked dead in space, and she was left alone.

He saw Sinclair's fighter head towards a Minbari cruiser, hearing over his communications system that Sinclair was going to ram it. Hollifield decided to follow suit and ordered his fighter to follow behind Sinclair's, not really giving a damn if he was about to be vaporized by a beam.

Suddenly, he saw a beam of light hit Sinclair's fighter, which seemed to knock out the engines. Another came along and began to pull in the fighter, and that pissed Hollifield off. "The hell you're taking Jeff prisoner!" he screamed as he went to ram Sinclair's fighter with his own, but the same beam hit his ship and he was knocked out.

When he came to, he was tied to some sort of crossbar. His mind scanned for life signs, and he found Sinclair's mind, as well as many alien ones. He looked over and saw Sinclair, who was being scanned with some sort of triangular device. It suddenly glowed, and the entire room seemed to change.

One of them said something about Valen, and Hollifield began to understand a bit of what they were saying. He had learned Minbari in his spare time as captain of the guard, on the off chance that they might come to the senses and want a peaceful solution. He knew about Valen from the texts that the Centauri envoy, Londo Mollari, had given him, but he couldn't figure out what the connection was between Sinclair and Valen.

The Minbari who had held up the triangular device came over to him and said to another Minbari dressed in a gray robe. "What are we to do with the telepath?" said the Minbari, a female from what he could tell, in their language.

"He may know the secret. Best to get rid of him to protect what we know.", the other Minbari said, also in their language.

"No!" he said in Minbari. "You need someone to watch over him! I can do that for you!" Hollifield didn't know why he said it, but it had come out of him in their language. The two Minbari had looked at him in surprise, and the female asked him, "You know our language?"

"I studied it. Please, don't kill me! I know that Sinclair means a lot to you, in some way. You need someone to make sure he does what you want him to. I can help you out, if you'll let me."

They decided to take him up on his offer. The female turned out to be Delenn, and she told him everything about Valen, and how Jeffery Sinclair was, in fact, Valen. Hollifield didn't know whether to believe it or not, but with the way the Minbari seemed so sure of it, he chose to buy into it anyway. He didn't care, because he would live and the Earth would live on.

The Minbari surrendered, and it shocked everyone. Sinclair and Hollifield were found the next day, and that's where things got screwy. Sinclair was suspected of being influenced by the Minbari, while Hollifield was not even questioned about what happened to him. He knew it was unfair, but there was a point to it all. Sinclair had to be protected, and Hollifield did what he could with his telepathy and his other skills to make sure that the one who would become Valen wasn't sidetracked.

Pamela and he were married weeks later by his uncle, and they were happy for most of their marriage. However, the campaign to re-elect Hollifield's mentor, Luis Santiago, had strained the relationship, and his accepting Santiago's offer to become chief of staff really damaged the marriage. At the time of Santiago's assassination, they were separated.

Clark took the oath of office, and the Minbari revealed to Clark part of their secret: that humans were getting Minbari souls. Clark didn't believe it, but it was a way to get Sinclair out of his hair, so he accepted the Minbari offer to have Sinclair become ambassador to Minbar with one condition: Hollifield would be his deputy. The Minbari agreed and Hollifield was to leave immediately to assume his new post.

Hollifield knew what was coming, and before he left, he went to see his estranged wife. "What do you want, Garrison?" she said brusquely.

"Listen, Pamela, I know we aren't what we used to be, but if you have ever trusted me, trust me now." Hollifield said in an almost desperate voice.

The tone got through to her, and she asked, "Why?"

"I know for a fact that Santiago was murdered, and that Clark was behind it. Look, some very bad things are about to happen. Clark and his people are going to go after anyone associated with Santiago, and since you're my wife, you're on the list."

Pamela knew he was serious, and asked him, "What do you want me to do?"

"Go to Mars." He handed her a piece of paper. "I have some friends in the Martian underground, back during the food riots after the war. Just look up one of these people, tell them who you are, and they'll see you to safety. When things get better, I'll come for you."

"And then?" she asked.

"We'll see where we stand there. If you still want to get divorced, then I'll sign the papers. If you want to give it another try, then we'll do it. Just do what I ask, if you have any love left for me. I don't want them to harm you, but I fear they will to get to me."

Pamela's eyes watered and they kissed. He left soon after and so did she. They didn't see each other for four years, as she had gotten caught up in the events in the Martian underground. But when she had heard that he was running for vice-president along with Suzanna Luchenko, she made contact with him again. He smiled when he saw her, because he had feared she'd been killed. They made love that night like they had on the eve of the Battle of the Line, and they became man and wife once again.

As Hollifield walked into his suite on Babylon 5, he remembered that it didn't last. She had been killed saving him during an assassination attempt on board the station as he was negotiating with the provisional Martian government. He still was mad at himself for not taking the bullet, but there was nothing to be done. Pamela was buried in her family's plot just outside Sydney, and he was now married to another Australian woman, Twanissa.

He was staring at her picture when the chime to his door sounded. "Enter!" he said to the computer, and the door swung open, with Lee "Apollo" Adama entering his quarters. "Sir, my father needs to speak with you about something. Do you have a moment?"

"Sure." He got up from the couch and was about to leave with the younger Adama when he stopped. "Lee, are you attracted to Dee?"

"What?" Apollo said, surprised by the question.

"Listen. Take it from this old spacer: when a chance at love comes along, it's best to go for it, because you never know when it'll come around again, or if you'll be around long enough for it to even have a chance at coming around."

Apollo was a bit perplexed at the impromptu advice and managed to reply, "I'll think about it, sir. Now, if you will…" He gestured down the hall and Hollifield followed him to meet with the commander of the Colonial fleet.